Andre Warnecke
Andre Warnecke was a Silesian citizen and politician who rose to power as the leader of a "privateer" squadron. Biography Dictator of the Cluster Warnecke first rose to prominence as a politician in the Chalice Cluster, a three-system region of space in the Silesian Confederacy. He made his way to power in the Cluster by presenting himself as a reformer and an advocate of Chalice independence, and once in power he announced plans for free elections and the establishment of an independent republic in the Chalice Cluster. However, not long after making these promises, Warnecke launched a general uprising against the Confederacy and together with his supporters, which he had placed in control of internal security, established a reign of terror in the name of "providing for the public safety". Havenite intelligence agencies estimated that the death toll of Warnecke's dictatorial rule amounted to more than three million Chalice citizens, not counting those that died during the Confederate Navy's attempts to restore Silesian authority over the Cluster. Eventually, after fourteen months of failed attempts, the Silesian military crushed the uprising and regained control over the Chalice Cluster. While the Silesians never found Warnecke either dead or alive, and even though the Confederate military assumed that he died in the final battles of the uprising, the Silesian Confederacy forged imagery depicting the hanging of Andre Warnecke in the aftermath of the uprising. ( ) Piracy Despite the Silesians' assessments and claims, Warnecke not only survived but managed to flee the Cluster with his closest core of fanatics onboard a squadron of warships of his "Navy", which he would immediately put to use in a piracy campaign, with the stated goal of assembling resources and forces for his final return to the Cluster to "liberate" it from the Confederacy. The targets of Warnecke's "privateers" included Manticoran merchant vessels, such as [[RMMS Bonaventure|RMMS Bonaventure]], in addition to Silesian- and Andermani-flagged civilian ships. During his raids, Warnecke found the planet Sidemore in the Marsh System, an independent world with no military, and seized control of the planet to use it as his base of operations. Warnecke's occupation of Sidemore resulted in atrocities and crimes which included the execution of almost all senior officials of the Sidemorian government, and the deployment of nuclear warheads in major cities to provide a deterrent against uprisings and foreign attacks. ( ) Downfall Around 1910 PD, Warnecke's private navy began to suffer casualties resulting from anti-piracy missions conducted by both the Royal Manticoran Navy and the People's Navy (the latter in an unofficial capacity), which ended in an assault against his Sidemore stronghold by the Manticoran armed merchant cruiser [[HMAMC Wayfarer|HMAMC Wayfarer]] under the command of Captain Honor Harrington. While Wayfarer succeeded in destroying the bulk of Warnecke's fleet, he threatened to detonate his nuclear warheads unless the Manticorans assured safe passage out of Marsh for himself and a small number of cronies, a threat he made good on by destroying a small city with one of his bombs, instantly wiping out an estimated 10-15,000 lives. Eventually, Captain Harrington succeeded in gaining Warnecke's consent for a complex procedure designed to ensure both the security of Sidemore and the personal safety of Warnecke, but which resulted in the ultimate capture of Andre Warnecke by Harrington and her Grayson armsmen, as well as the destruction of the ship which was to carry him out of the system. Warnecke was remanded to the Sidemorian government, which put him on trial and later executed him for his crimes. ( ) References Warnecke, Andre Warnecke, Andre Warnecke, Andre Warnecke, Andre